We had an amazing day and covered so much ground. Again we started off early today. We needed to get on the HOHO bus before 11:00 a.m. because that's when our 24 hour ticket expired. We made it. We headed downtown to Circular Quay as a starting point. I just needed to touch the Opera House at Bennelong Point (Architect Louis Kahn) and climb the 72 stairs up to the massive sails. Since the time this opened in 1973 this has always been an icon for me - there are ...

I thought this day would never come for me. I'm 62 and I'm just now getting to Australia. Many years ago I worked for a company, TNT - Thomas Nationwide Transport based in Sydney. We used to get copies of the monthly newsletter and it was always a dream of mine to get here one day. Well that day has happened. We schlepped our bags off the Volendam this morning at 8:30. Actually very reasonable disembarkation, no lines, plenty of taxi's. We had him take us direct...

Friday, October 16th – Day 23 – Nomeau, New Caledonia Today is Nomeau (New-may-a), we're about half way between Fiji and Australia and we’re about to hit France. Yes France. New Caledonia is a cluster of islands in the Coral Sea that is blessed with a massive coral reef and is considered a French enclave. Noumea, the country’s capital, with a population of about 180,000 peoplecovers a peninsula on the largest island, the cigar shaped Gr...

Day 22 of our Sailing Adventure I was torn today. Go ashore or watch the Blue Jays Game 5 of the ALDS that started at 06:00 a.m. a day before they really started to play. Deborah convinced me that our tender tickets took priority, so after a filling room-service breakfast we headed out to the tiny village of Kuto on Iles des Pins in New Caledonia. I can see from our balcony why they named the island – Iles des Pins, the whole island is covered with pine tr...

Anniversary – Easo, Lifou New Caledonia Seventeen years ago today I was getting married on side of the caldera by the mayor of Santorini, Greece. Today we're on another tiny island in the South Pacific, more specifically Easo on the French island of New Caledonia. It would be really interesting to know just how miles we’ve travelled in the twenty-two years together, easily in the six figures I suspect. Lifou island is a commune of France in the Loy...